


Rewind and Reset

by vassalady



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Kid Bucky Barnes, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 17:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1752488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vassalady/pseuds/vassalady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky finds himself in the past, but he can't convince his younger self to change his future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewind and Reset

**Author's Note:**

> I was flipping through Avengers/Invaders and saw the page where Cap Bucky tries to tell young Bucky to not get on the plane. So. I kind of did that with this. So. Bucky angsty feels ahead.

Bucky can’t believe it. It should be impossible. Yet here he is, standing at the docks, staring out at a New York from his childhood.

He remembers this place. It’s the same street that he got his first blowjob from someone who could have been a man or a woman, Bucky didn’t care (either worked for him). He was seventeen and all too happy to part with his savings. It was a good cause, after all. It was Steve’s birthday, so Bucky had taken them out to celebrate.

It’s easy to walk just a few blocks to the too-familiar street where Steve lived. Lives. Bucky went down this road every day for years. The buildings don’t look a bit different: run down, old even then, too cramped with people who could barely afford to live there.

He stops when he sees her. She’s carrying a bag over her shoulder, feet dragging a little. Mrs. Rogers. Alive, still looking healthy, if worn down. Bucky’s breath catches as he huddles against the wall, trying not to be seen.

When she disappears up the steps and into her apartment, Bucky finds his throat dry.

This is impossible.

\--

“Hello, boys,” Mrs. Rogers says when she comes in. Bucky and Steve are sprawled on the floor, rereading the same old comics that they’ve read a dozen times already.

“Look at this,” Steve says, standing up and showing off his paper. “I’ve decided I’m going to be a comic artist.”

Mrs. Rogers coos over the drawings and remarks how good they are. Bucky snorts and says “Yeah, he’s pretty good at tracing.”

That ends with a wrestling match on the floor. Mrs. Rogers tells them to be careful, even though she’s laughing.

Bucky doesn’t want to leave as evening creeps up, but his mom is expecting him home. He’s already late, and with the new baby, she needs him. But Bucky would rather just stay with Steve forever.

“You could stay for dinner if you wanted,” Steve says. “Mom wouldn’t mind.”

“Yeah, well, I got to get back, or Henry will use my bed tonight, and he still wets himself.” Bucky grins, easy, as if that’s the only reason he needs to be home. He also doesn’t want to intrude. He knows Mrs. Rogers doesn’t make a lot of money. Bucky’s family, though there are more of them, are better off, because his dad just got a new job that pays twice as much as his old one.

Steve makes a face. “Fine. See you at school tomorrow.”

Bucky pulls Steve in for a short wrestle before leaving. He jogs down the steps. He doesn’t want to leave. But he has no choice in the matter.

It’s also probably a good idea to get away from Steve for a little bit. He makes Bucky’s heart feel tight. It’s like one of Jo’s dumb romances she’s always reading, even though she’s only eight, and they have naughty bits in it.

Bucky’s not dumb. He knows what sex is, he’s heard his parents lots of times, he knows what goes down by the docks just a few streets away. He’s twelve, not stupid. But he’s not used to thinking about, well, maybe doing some of that stuff with Steve. It makes him feel hot and funny, and he doesn’t like that.

He’s only half a block away from Steve’s when a man approaches him. His clothes look a bit funny, and he is overdressed for the heat, with a heavy coat that’s turned up at the collar and gloves on his hands.

Bucky’s not worried. Occasionally, there will be someone who’s too dumb or too drunk to realize that Bucky hasn’t got a cent on him. But a good kick to the shins, and Bucky hightailing it in the other direction, they usually catch on quick.

This guy looks weird, though. Real weird.

Bucky shoves his hands in his pockets and keeps on walking.

“Hey, kid,” the man says. He steps in front of Bucky’s path. “I… I need to tell you something.”

“Yeah, well, keep walking, I’m not listening.”

“No, it’s..” The man looks haunted, eyes wide, mouth a little slack. He doesn’t look like a boozer, not the ones Bucky usually sees. There’s something… really off about this guy. “I know Mrs. Rogers. I’m an old friend.”

“Yeah, well, go talk to her, then.”

Bucky tries to walk past, but the man moves in front of him again. Bucky bristles. There’s no way he’s going to let this fucking creep get on him.

“Just one minute. Okay? One minute.”

“Start talking or I start walking.”

The man’s lips quirk up into a very brief smile. But it’s gone in an instant. “There’s war coming. Not for some time yet, but it’s coming. And when it does, you won’t have a choice, you’ll be drafted.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Listen, the war. You, both you and Steve will be in it. You’ll hijack a train one day. Don’t. Don’t get on that train. You can find another, you have to convince Steve that no matter what. Do whatever you can to stop it, but no matter what, do not get on that train.”

Bucky is starting get scared. The man looms over him, getting closer. He’s tall and broad, the kind of physique Bucky will unlikely ever achieve if his dad is anything to go by. “Look, mister, the war’s been ended for years.”

“No, there’s another one. The second World War. Germany, Nazis, HYDRA. Just don’t get on that train!”

Bucky nods his head. “Sure, whatever you say, fella. No trains. Me and Steve, we’ll catch a plane instead, how about that? Better yet, we just won’t go at all. Stay home”

The man doesn’t relax. “Draft, not possible. Just. Promise. Don’t get on that train.” His voice cracks in desperation.

“Promise.”

The man glances down at the ground before looking at Bucky again. He looks almost expectant. But nothing happens, and Bucky takes a step back.

“No trains,” he tells the man, to let him know he’s got it. “Sure, mister.”

Then he darts by and legs it to the corner. He glances back briefly, but the man is gone. 

Freak.

\--

Bucky wakes up in his room. No, it’s not his room. It’s Steve’s room, no matter how much Steve insists it’s theirs. But Bucky can’t get comfortable in it.

He slides out and makes his way to the living room, where Steve is watching TV.

“You’re awake,” Steve says. The relief is clear on his face and in his voice. “I know you don’t want any doctors, but I was giving you only one more hour.”

“What happened?”

Steve scoots over on the couch so that Bucky can join him. He wraps his arms around Bucky, pulling him in. “You got hit by that… thing, I don’t know what it was, like an old HYDRA weapon, but not.”

“That I remember.”

Steve rests his head against Bucky’s. “I called Stark. With SHIELD’s and HYDRA’s files, he and Bruce were able to get a lock on your bio-signature and pulled you back. You collapsed when we got you back.”

“That I… don’t remember.”

“Do you know where you went?”

Bucky can still see his younger self looking up at him, cocky but terrified. Young Bucky had said those things just to get this strange old guy off his back. Bucky admitted he was a little shit then. He didn’t really grow out it. Became a little smoother perhaps, but still a little shit.

He places his hand over Steve’s. It shines in the fading sunlight, silver metal, cold, hard.

Bucky brings up Steve’s hand and kisses it, focusing on Steve’s calluses, on the way his fingers move, how his fingernails look. He needs a trim.

His younger self hadn’t listened, if it had happened at all. Someone like Stark might have gone on about time paradoxes, the stuff of pulp novels that Bucky used to read, but he doesn’t care.

“What would you give up to go back?” Bucky asks.

Steve takes a long time to respond. If Bucky didn’t know Steve so well, he would think Steve didn’t understand the question. But eventually, Steve answers.

“I don’t know,” he says softly. “What exactly would I give up? This body? Then I wouldn’t have been able to save you. Fighting in the war? Never. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself and not fight.”

“Even knowing what happens?”

Steve looks sad as he twines his hand with Bucky’s metal one. He doesn’t answer, just holds Bucky’s hand. 

Steve would still fight, of course. That’s just who he is. Bucky isn’t like that. Bucky didn’t want to fight, but the draft demanded otherwise. He’s not as noble as Steve.

“I’d give everything up,” Bucky says. He stares at Steve’s hand in his. “Everything.” As much as his heart protests to admit it, that includes Steve.

When he meets Steve’s eye, he knows Steve understands what he means. There’s pain there, grief, and also guilt. But there’s also love and understanding. Steve brings Bucky’s left hand up to his cheek and presses their joined hands against their skin.

“You do what you need to, Bucky. But I’m here now, whenever you need me. No matter what has happened, what will happen, you’re not alone.”

Bucky has the sudden urge to kiss Steve, so he does. He leans forward and catches Steve’s mouth, kissing him until they are both panting, hands pressed against each other’s sides of their heads as if to anchor the other.

Bucky would give anything to take away the last 70 years, the brainwashing, the pain, his dehuminization. Anything to get his arm back. But it seems the universe is cruel in offering him a chance that he ended up blowing. But the universe isn’t completely without mercy.

Somehow, he has Steve in a way he never thought possible before his fall. He smiles, and Steve returns it, until they are chuckling softly. But it’s dark and earnest, like if they stop, they’ll end up drowning.

Bucky wants nothing more than to turn back the clock, but if he can’t, given the circumstances, the present is the best he could ask for.

Bucky will hold onto that.


End file.
